At a recent event she hosted to honor servicewomen, Second Lady Karen Pence remarked that “highlighting military women and families [is] one of her main platforms,” and that her role with regard to military women is “one of encouragement, it’s one of gratitude.”

As the mother of a newly married male Marine, Ms. Pence has admirable intentions. However, lumping military women and military spouses and families into the same category diminishes the service of women who have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

These women are military professionals who deserve to have the ear of their commander-in-chief or the vice president -- not be shuffled off to a high-profile spouse who is both not in their chain of command and, as a rule, does not discuss policy matters.

Ms. Pence’s conflation of “military women” and “military families” perpetuates the idea that a woman’s place is in the home, subordinate to her husband, rather than the military.

The failure of political and military leaders to fully embrace servicewomen as necessary and valuable components to our national defense perpetuates a hyper-masculine military culture and gross misperceptions of what a warrior should look and act like.

To that end, female stereotypes are often used to characterize weak, undesirable behavior by service men and result in double-bind or lose-lose scenarios for military women.

Family is perhaps the most prominent of these double binds. If a military woman chooses not to have children or get married, she is subject to undue scrutiny for not measuring up to the conservative ideal of the woman as caregiver and nurturer.

If she does have children, she faces being characterized by military men as either disloyal to her family or more concerned with being a mother than accomplishing the military mission. It’s a catch-22, and she simply can’t win.

The blurring of the lines between the unique of the roles of servicewomen and the traditional concept of women as mothers and wives also serves to reinforce the strong concern of many military wives that servicewomen are in direct competition with them for the attentions of their spouses.

Oftentimes at military social events, civilian spouses direct antipathy to military women out of misplaced jealousy.

The misconception that servicewomen join the military in order to meet and have relationships with men reinforces the outdated idea that men and women cannot work together. Unfortunately, the Second Lady’s world view reinforces this notion.

As recently reported in the media, to avoid temptation or the appearance of impropriety, Vice President Mike Pence does not dine or work late in his office with women who are not his wife.

But given the nature of military service, men and women must work together -- often in close quarters and at all hours of the day -- especially when deployed. Dinners and social functions, most of which involve alcohol, are an essential part of career development and promotion.

The Pences’ world view on gender and work relations further strain gender relations in the military and make life harder for servicewomen by reinforcing outdated views about appropriate gender roles and interactions.

The Marines United scandal and subsequent events of the past month highlight that now more than ever, servicewomen are in need of a champion in the highest levels of leadership to drive cultural change in the military.

Both the number of women in the military and their importance to mission accomplishment has increased in the past two decades.

Without servicewomen the military, and our nation as we know it, would cease to exist. As individuals who have sworn an oath to protect and defend our nation, military women deserve more than to be lumped together with military families and be shuffled off to the wife of the vice president for photo opportunities.

These women are warriors and it is time that the administration -- and our nation -- recognized that.

Hunter served for over a decade as a Marine Corps officer, including combat deployments as a AH-1W “Super Cobra” pilot and service as congressional legislative liaison officer. She is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Relations.

Germano, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, writes about the challenges faced by service women, the policy change that opened all military jobs to women and the need to desegregate Marine Corps recruit training.